SAF Newsletter 2006-1
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Newsletter NewsletterSAF of the Sensory Awareness Foundation Spring 2006 In This Issue Presence and Absence by Seymour Carter 1 In A Heartbeat SAF Co-President’s Letter 3 Reclaiming Vitality and Presence Reports from a student of Elsa Gindler “I Wish I Could Write Myself In Our Troubled World To Death Or To Life...” 6 by Felicitas Voigt Experiential Sensory Awareness Conference Sensory Awareness Conference Mount Madonna Center, CA SAF Publications 8 October 13 - 15, 2006 All photos in this issue by Stefan Laeng-8 Gilliatt, except page 1 and the picture of Find out more on page 8. Felicitas Voigt. Presence and Absence Seymour Carter shares his experiences exploring the elusive “I” through Sensory Join us Awareness and psychotherapy. in our effort to nurture the By 1967, the year I first met Charlotte Selver, I had been working as a student practice of Sensory Awareness. trainer and group dynamics leader for at least three years. I was living at Esalen Institute, and I had been exposed to a panoply of psychotherapy systems. I was using The basis of this work is to support the the encounter group model, based on Will Schultz’s confrontational methods, which capacity within each person to be present was to search for and expose emotional lapses. The kicking and screaming models of and responsive to what is needed within ourselves, in our relationships with others Lowen’s Bioenergetics were mixed in this witch’s brew of dynamic group interaction. and in our environment, and to con- It was 60s pop psychology at its best and worst. The process, using several techniques, tribute to a more connected and caring was a dramatic enactment of the client’s emotional issues. Our main focus was on world from one moment to the next. evoking aggression and sexuality in people who did not know how to handle aggres- Please renew your membership for sion or sexuality. 2006 or become a new member of the One day in 1967, I walked into our main meeting room at Esalen, and I saw it had Sensory Awareness Foundation. Our been arranged beautifully - wonderfully scented straw mats with Indian rugs on them, work is only possible with the help of flowers placed in the room and, at the head of the room, a sheep skin rug with some your contributions. kind of headset apparatus lying upon it. The room was empty and spacious. I thought (For more information see page 3.) to myself, “This is the first time at Esalen that am I encountering a display of some aesthetic taste and pleasure.” Esalen was rustic and ragged at that time with very lit- tle taste displayed anywhere on the property. This scene in our meeting room made me (continued on page 2) wonder why the headset was there and what this group was felt sense of presence. We’re trying to reach beyond our con- about. I thought, “I’m going to come back here and check it ditioned habits whereby we let the organism’s functions have out.” foreground in our attention field. In standing, by paying close I came back later and found Charlotte Selver directing a attention to how gravity is affecting our weight and our struc- class with the headset on her head. She had difficulty hearing. ture and how we are breathing in response to all of these phe- In the room were many people standing with stones on their nomena, we begin to feel where balance can occur in us and heads. I was intrigued by this scene, so I slipped in unnoticed, how restoration can be activated. put a stone on my head, and began to follow Charlotte’s explo- Doing an experiment in sensing such as with gravity and ration. She was working with finding balance with our weight weight is philosophically going from a universal to a particu- and with the weight of the stone. I was astonished that I could lar. While exploring our weight, the experiments are directed to explore my sensory experience in such a delicate and accurate the experience of our weight in our joints and tissues directly, way. It seemed to deepen the texture of the awareness that I’d moment by moment. The teacher takes the universal notion, gotten from the psychotherapy, meditation, and LSD experi- weight, and unpacks it into the here and now phenomenologi- ences I had been involved in since the early 60s. However, the cal experience. And the same strategy works in many domains Sensory Awareness practice was significantly more subtle and of human experience. We take an instance like fear and ask the differentiated. person to describe exactly What amazed me was that The critical clinical innovators, in my view, where and how they experi- Charlotte’s work seemed to link were Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir, ence their fear. This inter- together many of the realms of vention changes the client my previous explorations, and it Charlotte Selver, and Milton Erickson. from being dissociated from also provided me an avenue that They provided the strategies for intervening their experience to being my Zen practice had not at that with the present moment’s emergent properties reflectively engaged in their time. The Zen Buddhist literature and taught us the power of the now experience, here and now. I was reading implied that my to transform a person’s life. Thus, another key to the Zen practice was going to evoke work is to guide a person a state of presence and con- into the here and now expe- sciousness that would be significantly different from the ordi- rience of themselves or, as Charlotte might say, to the “imme- nary, but my experience was that it had not. The practice diacy of it all.” seemed to mostly consist of learning to sit in a painful and rigid posture. In my study of psychotherapy, my belief is that Jung and Freud were not the major clinical geniuses of the 20th century. During Sensory Awareness classes, we begin to tune in to Their foundationalist conceptions of deeper motivational strata our inner life: the pulses, the streaming of warmth, the shifts in in human personalities – i.e.: unconscious drives, the collective balance, the rhythms of our breathing, etc. This inner search for unconscious, etc. – are seen to be culturally located construc- the natural reactivity of our organism to its surroundings helps tions, not universals, but artifacts of a particular culture (see: us recover from being out of touch with our organic life. For Unauthorized Freud: Doubters Confront a Legend, edited by me, the Sensory Awareness practice of searching for our home- Frederick Crews, The Jung Cult : Origins of a Charismatic ostatic balance was missing in all the other Western therapeu- Movement, by Richard Noll). The critical clinical innovators, in tic methods in which I had been trained. None of the other my view, were Fritz Perls, Virginia Satir, Charlotte Selver, and practices had this piece of what happens when an organism Milton Erickson. They provided the strategies for intervening comes to rest and balance. with the present moment’s emergent properties and taught us Resting is an important part of presence, an important part the power of the now to transform a person’s life. of health and healing, of the rhythm of life. Sensory Awareness I believe, both Gestalt Therapy and Sensory Awareness is dealing with our sensory/motor phenomena. By focusing on are forms of meditative trance. My understanding and imple- these phenomena, we are focusing on what I would say is the mentation of this has been mostly helped by Milton Erickson’s autonomic system of self-functioning. Many of our habitual work and studies. These practices clearly fit the Ericksonian muscular tension patterns are creating problems in our func- definition of trance phenomena. tioning. Sensory Awareness practice teaches us to tune into our I think students of Sensory Awareness should look into organismicly driven restorative activities. When we are tuned Milton Erickson’s work, particularly his teaching of how to use to the autonomic nervous system, the breathing patterns and one’s voice, rhetoric, and observations of clients’ behavior for the muscular tension patterns that are creating our daily aches enhancing the rapport between oneself as a guide and the per- and pains can be relieved. We enter into a discreet and distinct son exploring their here and now awareness, for exploring their state of being. individual search. In Sensory Awareness practices we are not focusing on Here I will quote from Milton Erickson and Ernest Rossi dreams. We’re not focusing on emotions. We are not focusing in “Hypnotic Realities” on two definitions of trance: on our inner narrative monologue. We are trying to enter into a 2 (continued on page 4) SAF Co-President’s Letter Watsonville, California, October 13 - 15, 2006. The confer- ence will give a larger audience the opportunity to rediscover Dear Friends of the Sensory Awareness Foundation, the relevance of Sensory Awareness. What is Sensory Awareness? This question is posed to me The conference will be preceded by a two-day meeting of very often. Yet, the answer to this seemingly very simple ques- Sensory Awareness leaders (practitioners): Honoring the Past tion never comes easy. I have always liked the name Charlotte – Creating the Future. It will be a rare opportunity for lead- Selver gave this work, although it can be misleading. Charlotte ers from all over the world to meet and explore how to bring was very aware of the danger of naming what she offered and this work forward today. often worried that Sensory Awareness had become but a brand name or, as she put it, a Oral History Project: I am stamp.